Kneeling again next to RFK 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero held Robert Kennedy's hand as the senator

[RamboLiberal]

Reporting from Arlington, Va.

As a skinny teenage busboy, Juan Romero knelt beside a mortally wounded Bobby Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. On Saturday morning, more than 42 years later, he knelt again, this time beside RFK's grave on what would have been Kennedy's 85th birthday.

Romero was wearing a suit for the first time in his life, saying it was the proper way to show his respect for a man whose memory he has tried to honor by living a life of tolerance and humility.

Getting up the courage to visit Arlington National Cemetery was not easy for Romero, a construction worker from San Jose who has been haunted for decades by the events of June 5, 1968. Under a soft blue sky, with fall colors exploding across the velvety slopes of the cemetery, Romero walked off to be alone and have one last good cry before visiting the grave.

"Sorry," he apologized to his daughter, Elda, and friend, Rigo Chacon, who had made the trip with him from California. "If I can get it out of the way now...." Maybe a good cry would help him keep his composure, he said, when he finally stood at the grave.

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-lopezcolumn-20101121,0,5601755.column


Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

[OhioBlue]

1. thanks for the link

fantastic article.

[KT2000]

2. Oh my -

what a great article.
I just hope he has found peace from this trip.

[Mike Nelson]

3. Peace,

brother.

[blue sky at night]

4. Hey you caught me....

i too loved the guy and was hurt deeply back then when I was in eighth grade. Thanks for the post! and the LINK!

everyone should click the link and read the article, it is a healing thing...

[RamboLiberal]

5. Yes it is

Beautifully written. I hope the visit brought Mr. Romero some peace from the nightmare of that night.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thanks so much for this. Let me post these words from Robert Kennedy...

from the article. They are engraved near his resting place:

"What we need in the United States is not division … not hatred … not violence or unlawfulness, but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country.... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to take the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world...."

[grasswire]

7. that photo of RFK dying is puzzling

Why are no other people bent around him? Why are people just standing in the background? No doctor on the scene? Very surreal.

[tavalon]

10. He was surrounded by photographers who took pictures the instant it happened

Most photographers and journalists of that day as well as our own, think first of their profession, not their humanity. That boy was the only good human in that second or two. Of course, that quickly changed, but those first few seconds we see pictures because of photographers who forgot to be human first.

I'm not Catholic, not even Christian, but the part where Juan Romero took out his rosary and pressed it into RFK's hand made cry. It also made me sad to think that he has carried that survivor's guilt all of these years.

[Hissyspit]

22. "Think first of their profession, not their humanity"

As a former photo-journalist, that's not fair.

Situations like that are shocking to all and no one is particularly sure how to behave. But photographers' training and professionalism kick in at the moment. Are you implying that the necessary occupation of documenting human acts is not humane? There are times when interventionist activity would be the best thing for a journalist to do and there are times when it would not be. There are times when it is not clear at all what anyone should be doing.

There were MANY people there who were not photographers. Where are they? What particular point was this in the events? Maybe everyone had been asked to move off or it seemed the correct thing to do.

[tavalon]

24. You're right

I'm wrong. In that moment of shock, professionals of all types fall back on what they do instinctively. That wasn't fair at all. I'm sorry.

[1monster]

25. Shock. They, including the photographers were most likely in shock. Aiming the camera

and taking that photo is the action of someone who is adrift reaching out to something familiar and normal.

Others were trying to stop the gun fire, and others still could not comprehend what was happening.

Even the young man kneeling beside RFK did not understand what had hapapened at first. At the time of that photo, there wasn't even blood staining the floor yet. I remember seeing photos from a very short time later with a pool of blood under Bobby's head.

Anyone who harshly judges people for freezing or reaching out for normality simply doesn't understand how humans react to shock. (I'm agreeing with you, not aiming this at you.)

[Bluenorthwest]

11. I was a small child then and one line sticks in my head,

"Give the Senator room to breath" I remember coming out of the TV. Give the Senator room to breath.

[proteus_lives]

8. K/R.

[tavalon]

9. What a precious humanbeing!

I hope this helped him some. To have your whole life changed in this way, it's just so sad.

[BrklynLiberal]

12. ....

:cry: ..for Romero, for RFK and his family, for the whole country's loss...what might have been.

[MadMaddie]

17. That song

I always think of the following song: Abraham, Martin and John (and Bobby)

Breaks...my ....heart...everytime....(What the U.S could have been....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUn0vvgEvBc

Lyrics to Abraham, Martin And John :
Has anyone here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me whe he's gone?
Oh, he freed a lot of people
but it seems the good die young, yeah.
I just looked around and he was gone.

Hmmm

Has anyone here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me whe he's gone?
You know, he freed a lot of people
but it seems the good die young, yeah.
I just looked around and he was gone.

Oh yeah

Has anyone here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me whe he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
but it seems the good die young, yeah.
I just looked around and he was gone.



Has anyone here seen my friend Bobby?
Can you tell me whe he's gone?
You know, he freed a lot of people
but the good, they die young, yeah.
I just looked around and he was gone.

Oh, I just looked around and they were gone, oh yes

[BrklynLiberal]

19. ..yep.............

[66 dmhlt]

13. One of the most anguishing & haunting photos of our lives

[Faygo Kid]

14. Oh my. I remember it all like it was yesterday.

Exactly where I was - just like MLK. I remember it like a clear snapshot. We were torched; Bobby would have won, and we would have been spared Nixon and another 5 years of war.

Wait until Monday. I was 12 then.

[Alameda]

15. what a powerful photo the link shows!

[patrice]

16. A very pure example of how spiritually valuable "the little people" are.

[saracat]

18. Beautiful article and very timely. What pigs are the TeaParty freepers who posted in the comments

Those comments perfectly illudstrate why we can never find commom ground with them.

[undeterred]

20. How wonderful to hear his story.

I never knew he was more than a bystander- that he had admired Kennedy and was actually talking to him when he was shot and praying over him as he lay dying. What a powerful experience it must have been for him.

[Hissyspit]

21. Rec'd a million goddamned times...

If I could.

[tpsbmam]

23. Just in time to K&R. Thanks for posting this. Tears -- what an incredibly touching

story. :cry:

[1monster]

26. "Few will have the greatness...

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation...It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Robert Francis Kennedy Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966.

[southernyankeebelle]

27. It's hard to believe those were the good days with great politicans that really cared for people.